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Saturday, January 20, 2018

James Review -- Andromedan Dark: Darkness Falling

This week I decided to review Andromedan Dark: Darkness
Falling by Ian Douglas.

When the novel begins, the colony mission led by the Tellus Ad Astra has found itself displaced four
billion years into the future to an age where the Andromeda and Milky Way
galaxies have merged. The expedition has fended off an attack by the Andromedan
Dark. When the expedition approaches a world believed to have once been Earth, they encounter the Galactic Cooperative, an
alliance of civilizations fighting the Andromedan Dark.

The Galactic Cooperative offers the humans a new world and
support in exchange for the expedition doing battle against their enemies. Grayson
St Clair, the expedition’s military commander, questions why such an advanced
force needs the Tellus Ad Astra’s assistance, but the Cybercouncil, the
mission’s civilian leadership, agrees to the alliance without consulting him. This
leaves the human forces facing the rapidly approaching Bluestar, an Andromedan
Dark attack platform.

After a scouting mission goes horribly wrong, St. Clair is
forced to attempt to convince the Cooperative’s
leadership to give him the resources needed for a desperate attack plan. Meanwhile, the ousted former leader of the Cybercouncil has
been trying to turn the population against the alliance with the Cooperative.
This leads to the Cybercouncil sending an assassin after him, and they swiftly
add St. Clair to their target list because they're angered by him exercising the authority
granted him during military emergencies. And St. Clair is still exploring many questions
regarding ties between the Cooperative and the Dark as well as the role one of,
or both of, the factions played in bringing the Tellus Ad Astra to this era.

I give this book 9 out of 10. It has a nice variety of
scenes, problems and questions for the characters to deal with. I also enjoy a
lot of the characterizations, and the number of view point characters. That
being said, there are some plotlines that I wish had received more attention
then they did.